How to Help the Victims of Typhoon Haiyan

Amidst the devastation and destruction, you have overwhelmed our broken hearts with your world-wide outpouring of concern, prayers and offers of help. What encouragement and comfort this has given! We know that the media scenes of all the tragedy here have caused your hearts to break too and you want to help in all ways possible. We are so grateful.

We do face challenges though because although many of you outside of the Philippines want to leave your homes immediately to come here and volunteer, the conditions in many areas would make that difficult. Right now Tacloban is under military surveillance in an attempt to restore order and any groups of volunteers must be part of an officially recognized NGO here. So individuals and groups who come here without official contacts will be turned away like one group we heard about recently. Also, the challenge of lodging and feeding unexpected groups/individuals takes valuable resources away from those we are all trying to help first – the victims.

So, perhaps we can instead suggest that, for now, energies can be put into fundraising in your areas. The needs will be here long after rescue teams and other groups return home. Later, once order is restored and things settle a bit, our churches will need volunteer teams to help rebuild and reach out to the surrounding communities as well. Our affected schools and institutions will also need this type of assistance. So, if possible, perhaps we can gently refocus attention in our worldwide Adventist communities from immediately organizing groups to come here to instead dedicatedly raising funds and later planning for possible mission trips.  Thank you again for your love, concern and selfless attitudes. You are a blessing to us. 

Your monetary donations can make a great difference to the Adventist church members and others there. If you wish to help in this way, you may make a donation to ADRA Philippines at www.adra.ph/donate.We may also provide you with communication assistance if you wish to reach out to a local Adventist pastor or know the situation of some of our church members there by contacting the SSD Communication office at +63 46 414 4079 or email gdeles@ssd.org